Just a Cowboy and His Baby (Spikes & Spurs) (14 page)

“Wow, this is more dangerous than gang territory,” Kelsey said.

“In its own way, it is. Now are we ready to show those boys we’re not afraid of anything?” Gemma asked.

They all put their hands in a pile and Jessie yelled, “Pick beans!”

As the luck of the draw would have it, Damian and his partner, Tyrelle, had drawn the job of cutting okra and Trace set them to work on the row right beside Jessie and Fiona. Once Gemma showed them what size pods to harvest and how to use the knife to make a clean cut, she went to check on her other four teams, but the arguments over in the okra rows could be heard halfway to Ringgold, Texas.

“Boy, I’m holding a knife. You don’t want to be givin’ me no smack,” Fiona told Damian.

“You think I ain’t got a knife too?” Tyrelle asked. “Oh, oh! There’s a bug. Jessie, I swear it’s big as a dollar bill. You girls better run. It’s goin’ to jump right down your shirt.”

“Where?” Jessie asked.

“Right here.” Damian held up the leaf.

Jessie took a step over to his row, flipped the bug off, and ground it into the dust. “There, boys. Just call me if you see another one.”

“She’s tough as my momma,” Tyrelle said.

Jessie pointed a long slender finger at him. “And don’t you forget it.”

Gemma was proud of her girls. Jessie might be the head she-coon in the mix, but they were standing their own ground. She’d even bet that after a couple of lessons Jessie and Fiona both would be able to manhandle a bronc.

Then the air split wide open when Chantelle set up a screaming howl over near the squash plants. “It’s a rat!”

Gemma’s blood ran cold. She hated spiders and bugs, but she really hated rats and mice. Damian took off in a dead run and grabbed up the varmint by the tail, holding it out at arm’s length.

“Funniest rat I ever saw. It’s blind.” He cocked his head to one side and his straight black hair fell over his eyes. “Look, Tyrelle. I ain’t never seen no blind rat.”

“It’s a mole,” Trace said from the end of the garden. “Bring it on down here and we’ll take care of it. They can damage the roots of the garden plants.”

Damian nodded. “I didn’t think it was no rat. You girls need saving again just call me and Tyrelle. We ain’t afraid of no rats. Heck, I’ve seen bigger ones than that on my way to school.”

“Thank you.” Chantelle shivered. “I hate rats.”

Damian puffed out his chest. “Any time.”

Score
one
for
the
girls
and
one
for
the
boys,
Gemma thought. She looked up and caught Trace looking her way, but he deftly slid his gaze toward the boys and walked away.

She’d looked forward to the hike toward the mountains ever since they’d seen the schedule for the week. But in her imagination she and Trace would bring up the rear, letting the twenty kids run on ahead to discover all kinds of nature items, some for the girls to take back to put in their treasure boxes. They’d have a whole afternoon together, but it didn’t work that way. Trace made sure he took the lead in the hike, saying that he was the tracker and he’d scare away the snakes and other varmints that might harm the hikers. And she brought up the rear all alone.

Less than half an hour into the hike the girls and boys were mixed up together like a passel of newborn puppies. They didn’t need much supervision and the sheer noise of their laughing, bantering, and stomping around would put any kind of wild animal on the run so she had plenty of time to mull over all that had happened since she pulled into the Cody rodeo two weeks before.

Looking back, it had been a hormonal roller-coaster ride from the time Trace reached out a hand to help her. From there it was all downhill with one coincidence after another throwing them together. She’d been around sexy cowboys her whole life, so why did this one make her juices boil? Maybe it wasn’t all coincidence but fate tossing them together time after time. And Liz said that you couldn’t fight fate.

Well, Liz was wrong just like she was on the bit about her having a cowboy and a baby of her own by the end of the year. It wasn’t happening. She’d proven that she could fight with fate that morning when she spilled coffee on her favorite nightshirt. She’d damn sure fought with Trace, hadn’t she? And he was fate spelled with all capital letters.

She kicked a pinecone out of the way and reached down to pick it up. A white feather was stuck in the scales of the cones. She turned it over several times and looked around the area for the tree it might have fallen from, but the only pine trees were far out in the distance.

“Wonder if one of the guys want it for their dream catcher?” she whispered.

“Did you say something?” Carly turned around and asked.

“I was just talking to myself. Did you find something to go on your box?”

Carly shook her head. “I’m still looking. Did you? I saw you pick something up.”

“I found something,” Jessie yelled and held up a long slender feather. It glistened in the sunlight. “What’s it from?”

“Looks like alien’s hair to me,” Tyrelle teased.

Damian crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s a feather out of an Indian’s headdress.”

Trace turned and walked back a few feet to where the kids had all gathered around Jessie. “It’s a hawk’s feather. It’ll look very nice on whatever your craft project is. Good eyes, Jessie.”

At that point, Gemma thought he might stroll on back to where she was, but he didn’t. He completely ignored her. If he wanted to play that way then she could oblige him. And the truth of the matter, hurt or not, was that she knew why she called him cowboy and it didn’t have a damn thing to do with his name. It was because she really wanted him to be
the
cowboy and if she kept calling him that maybe Liz would read the cards again and tell her that there was a dark-haired cowboy in her future.

Damn his sorry old hide anyway! A stubborn Missouri mule didn’t have a thing on him. Why she even wanted him in her future was a mystery.

They returned at five o’clock with twenty kids still hyped up over their finds. The aroma of cooking food wafting out from the dining tent hit their noses. It was thirty minutes until suppertime and the kids were tired, cranky, and starting to bicker. She looked at Trace who just shrugged. Some father he would be in a crisis. He’d probably leave all the discipline to her. High color filled her cheeks at the notion of having his children. She turned around to face the kids so he couldn’t see the blush.

“Okay, we’ve got a few minutes. Everyone gather up on our porch and let us all see what you found today,” Gemma said.

That brought the boys back to attention and stopped the girls’ whining. When they’d each had a turn at show-and-tell, Trace stepped forward with a small rock and held out his hand.

“Is it an arrowhead?” Damian asked.

“No, but the shape reminded me of one that I found down in the Palo Duro Canyon back when I was about your age,” he said.

“What’s a palo whatever you said?” Damian asked.

“I’ll tell you about it while we get cleaned up for supper. We’ll see you ladies later.” Trace tipped his straw hat toward the girls but didn’t look at Gemma.

“Did you find something, Gemma?” Carly asked.

She held out her pinecone with the white feather in it.

“Wow! A white feather,” Angie said.

“So what?” Jessie smarted off.

“A white feather means good luck in Cajun. If you find one something wonderful will happen to you.”

“That’s bull,” Jessie said.

“Might be to you but I’m Cajun and it’s magic to me. Miss Gemma is going to find out that today was a lucky day. That it’s stuck down in a pinecone is even better. A pinecone means that love is coming her way.”

Gemma looked at the pinecone. She might be weaving a tale, but Gemma liked it.

“I hope she’s right,” she mumbled.

“I am right. When you are an old lady you will remember today and your white feather and it will make you smile.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk about love and feathers. I’m starving to death,” Jessie declared. “Let’s go get ready for supper.”

They all took off for the bathrooms. Gemma made a mad dash through the fastest shower she’d ever taken, slipped into a white sundress, jammed her feet down into her lucky pink cowboy boots, brushed out her hair, and applied a little perfume. She’d show that stubborn cowboy what he was missing.

“Wow! You look all fancy,” Fiona exclaimed when Gemma came out of her bedroom.

“Thank you. Are we all ready?”

“Two hours past ready,” Carly said. “My stomach was growling a long time ago.”

“So you are going to make him sorry for being mean this morning,” Jessie whispered to Gemma on the way out the door.

Not much got past a twelve-year-old kid from Nashville who evidently watched entirely too many chick flicks.

“You bet I am,” Gemma said and changed the subject. “So tell me, do you like fried okra?”

“Oh, yeah, and sliced tomatoes with it and fried chicken. My granny cooks like that when we go see her down south of Nashville. She buys it from the farmer’s market and it tastes so good. You think Hill can make it taste like Granny does?” Jessie asked.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

The boys had clean hands, shining faces, and their hair was combed. Even Damian’s long dark hair was tamed back into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. They quickly met the girls at the door and the dining hall was no longer segregated. The hike that afternoon had created friendships, and boys and girls sat together in groups around the table, waiting for Hill to call supper.

Finally, he came out of the kitchen and rang the dinner bell, but there was no food on the buffet table. Carly moaned and rolled her eyes.

“Tonight we’ll be having a big family dinner. Two tables with the food down the middle. Don’t matter which table you sit at because the same kind of food will be on both tables. So all you kids are responsible for coming to the kitchen and carrying a bowl to your table. You are to pick up whatever it was that you harvested this morning and take it to your table. We’ll be sitting at the table over in the corner with the counselors. When it’s all down the middle then you can sit down and commence to passing it.”

“This is great,” Gemma said.

“By the second night they are beginning to mingle and talk more. This gets them to visiting about what they harvested, how good it tastes or how much they hate it if they’ve never tried it and don’t like it,” Harper explained. “See how gently they are carrying bowls and platters.”

Gemma smiled at him. “It’s sure not your first rodeo, is it?”

Harper’s eyes twinkled. “No, ma’am, it is not.”

“And I bet by Friday they are all exchanging phone numbers and email addresses,” she said.

“Those who have such things. The others will be giving out snail mail addresses. At the dance we give each of them a small notebook with our logo on the front. They can put whatever they want inside. Most of them use it for phone numbers and addresses.”

Hill carried out a platter of fried chicken and set it on the table he’d designated for the adults. “Y’all either carry or starve.” He looked at Gemma and Trace. “You don’t help, you don’t eat.”

They headed for the kitchen at the same time, but they both were careful not to touch or even look at the other one. She reached for a bowl of squash with her left hand and a plate of steaming hot biscuits with her right. Her right hand brushed against Harper’s arm and not one single little fizzle of a spark danced across the floor. The fingertips on her left hand barely touched Trace’s as he reached for the same bowl of squash and something akin to lightning bolts lit up the whole kitchen.

He jerked his hand back and asked, “You ready to talk?”

“Are you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Then we’ll wait another day,” she said.

“Putting it off so you don’t have to own up to the truth?” he asked.

“I’ll talk anytime you want to. I’m not putting off anything. But I wouldn’t even want to talk to St. Peter right now. I’m hungry and when I get hungry I get real cranky. Granny calls it my Jesus mood. She says even Jesus couldn’t live with me when I’m hungry. So it would not be a good time to test my mettle, cowboy.”

“My name is Trace,” he growled.

“Cowboy. Trace. It doesn’t matter if it’s Donald Duck. You better let me eat before we get into this talk,” she said.

“Tomorrow is early enough.”

“Are you playing games with me?” she asked on the way to the table with him so close to her side that she could smell his cologne.

“I could ask you the same question,” he answered.

“If you two don’t stop talking and get that food over here, we’re starting without you,” Harper singsonged.

Gemma heard Jessie giggle, but she didn’t look toward the table.

Carly tossed an old magazine in front of Gemma and pointed to a picture of a movie star wearing a fancy ball gown. Her hair was swept up in a slick twist with a riot of curls on the top of her head.

“Where’d this come from?” Gemma asked.

“I got it out of the trash last year and I brought it with me. That’s what I want to look like tonight,” she said.

“Honey, I don’t sew and if I did I couldn’t make a dress like that in five hours,” Gemma said.

“I’m not talking about the dress. I want my hair to do that and I want to borrow some of your makeup. I’ll wear my green sundress for the dance, but I want to be pretty and you
are
a hairdresser. You said so. And I bet you know how to put on makeup, too.”

The other nine girls gathered round to see what Carly wanted to look like.

Deanna held up her hands. “And fingernails. Can you do a French manicure? I always wanted one of them, but do you know how much they charge at the mall to do your nails like that?”

“Please!” Jessie begged. “We’ll help. Just tell us what to do.”

“Okay,” Gemma agreed. “The end of the craft table will be our beauty shop. First we’ll do nails, then hair, and finally makeup.”

“What do we do first?” Katy asked.

“You will all take a shower and wash your hair. Pay attention to dirt under your nails and toenails. We might as well do both while we’re at it. Princesses or cowgirls, neither one go to the ranch dance with nasty toenails. Carly, Deanna, Katy, Angie, and Jessie, you all go to the showers first. The rest of you clear off the craft table. Move all the excess paint and decorations onto the cabinet. I’ll get out the curling iron, nail polish, and hair spray while you do that.”

She checked the clock. Ten girls in five hours would be pushing the time frame, but she could do it if they all pitched in and helped.

Fiona jumped off her bunk and started to work. “What do you want me to do with our craft boxes?”

“Put them on the kitchen table. We won’t be needing night snacks since we’ll be coming home from the party late. Beth, you come with me and help me carry stuff,” Gemma called over her shoulder.

She handed Beth the cosmetic case and looked seriously at the big tub. Five girls at a time could soak their feet in bath salts in that thing if the sides were flat enough for them to sit on, but they weren’t.

“What are you thinking about? You got this weird look on your face,” Beth said.

“I’m trying to figure out something to use as a foot bath. Before we do toes we need to soak your feet and lotion them up so they’ll be all pretty,” Gemma answered.

Beth opened the cabinets under the sink and pointed. “We got one of them in our bathroom too. Carly says that it’s a puke bucket, but Jessie said it’s for mopping up the floors. We could use them both and do two at a time.”

Gemma hugged her.

“You are a genius,” she said.

Beth blushed. “Will you tell my momma that?”

“Anytime, darlin’.” Gemma grabbed the bucket and turned on the water in her bathtub. She adjusted the temperature, threw a handful of bath salts into the bucket, and filled it with warm water.

“Want me to bring the other one in here?”

“Did you see what I just did?” Gemma asked.

Beth nodded.

“I want you to do the same thing. Set that case in my bedroom and your next job is to fix another bucket of water.”

Gemma carried the bucket to the table and met Carly coming out of the bathroom. Her head was wrapped in a towel and another one was tucked around her body. “What do I put on? My nightshirt?”

Gemma nodded. “That’s fine until it’s time for hair and then you will wear one of my snap-front Western shirts so that your hair doesn’t get messed up when you pull the shirt off.”

Carly looked at the bucket of water. “What is that for?”

“To soak your feet. I told you that we’re doing pedicures too. Put your feet in it while I do your nails and then we’ll work on your toes,” Gemma explained.

Carly sat down, stuck her feet into the bucket, and splayed her fingers out on the table in front of Gemma.

“That water feels soft on my feet,” Carly said.

“It’s bath salts,” Gemma explained.

“Who gets this one?” Beth asked.

“Angie,” Gemma said. “When Carly is done, Angie will be next. Someone will take Carly’s bucket to my bathroom and dump the water in the tub. Beth will show you how to do the next one. When it’s her turn then someone else can take over.”

Gemma was filing Carly’s broken uneven nails when Fiona led the last five out of the bathroom and they all settled into their chairs.

“While I do this you can pick out your polish. Whatever you pick out for your nails goes on your toenails too. And I do have a few jewels so you can each choose some for your big toenails,” Gemma said.

“Pink, red, blue, or purple.” Carly touched each bottle. “I want blue because my green dress has big blue flowers and I want diamonds on my toenails.”

“You other girls be deciding,” Gemma said. “We don’t have time for hum-hawing around.”

“What’s hum-hawing?” Jessie asked.

“That’s like not being able to make up your mind,” Angie told her.

“Well, there ain’t none of that hum-crap for me. I want pink and I want them red stars on my toes,” Jessie said.

Gemma had made a trip into town on Wednesday to pick up a few more supplies for their craft project and on the way back she’d passed a dollar store. She needed a package of emery boards and hair spray and while she was in the cosmetic aisle she noticed the fingernail polish. She’d bought each of her girls a small bottle of fingernail polish, a tube of flavored lip gloss, and a fingernail file. After a whole week of making the boxes it seemed only fitting that they find a surprise when they opened them up on their way home the next day.

“Hey, girls, before I forget. When you come home from the dance tonight you are going to be too hyped up to sleep so you have one more project to finish,” Gemma said.

“What?” Jessie asked.

“There will be some stationary, a pen, and an envelope on your pillow. I want you to write a letter to your partner. Tell them anything you want, but remember someone is writing about you while you are writing about them. When you get done, put your note in the envelope, seal it, and put it on the table. I’ll take care of them in the morning.”

“Oh, man! I’m not good at that stuff,” Fiona said.

“Then it will be a good lesson,” Gemma told her.

Carly was so mesmerized by her pretty nails that she couldn’t look at anything else until her toenails were done and then they took center stage. “Look, Deanna. Ain’t they pretty? And look at the sparkle on my toenail. Man, I’m going to be a princess tonight.”

Deanna smiled and patted her on the shoulder. Gemma’s heart almost burst with pride. But by the time she finished the last little girl’s makeup, she felt like she’d been put through an old wringer washing machine. “And now it’s my turn. Can you all sit right here and wait for me? And if any of you get into a catfight and mess up one of my hairdos or chip a single fingernail, I swear, I’ll make you stay in this cabin all night and no one will see how pretty you are.”

“Yes, Momma Gemma.” Jessie giggled.

***

“Just one more time,” Tyrelle begged Trace. “I ain’t got that last part down just right yet.”

“Okay, Damian, come on over here. You are ready and Tyrelle needs a partner,” Trace said.

“Ah, man! I don’t like bein’ the girl. I like to lead and I’m goin’ to show Jessie how it’s done tonight. I bet them girls ain’t been practicing like we have,” Damian said.

“Well, you’re going to help Tyrelle one more time,” Trace said. “That’s what partners are for.”

“Okay, but man, you better not wig out on me and stand over in the corner after I teach you all about this dancing stuff,” Damian said.

Trace was proud of his boys. They’d come a long way from that wary passel that had stumbled into his cabin that first night. Their hair was slicked back, their faces clean, and their shoes or boots shined. They’d brushed their teeth and even used some of his aftershave as cologne.

Trace pushed a button on the CD machine and George Strait sang “I Cross My Heart.” It was a good beat for two-stepping and they’d practiced two nights on the dance. Trace just hoped that when they got to the dining cabin that they all didn’t “wig out” as Damian said.

“Hey, guys, remember this will be a country dance,” he reminded them.

“We could do this to rap, man! We are that good!” Tyrelle told him. “Okay, Damian, my bro, I got it now. And then I’m going to tip her back like they do in the movies and she’s goin’ to know that us boys are the winners for the whole week.”

The song ended and the boys all lined up for one more inspection before they walked out the door. Trace checked each of them, straightening a collar here and dusting off a shoe there.

“Okay, boys. You’ve worked hard all week. Go make me proud tonight. Show those girls you aren’t afraid to dance, but most of all go have a good time,” Trace said.

Even their walk changed as they went to the dining hall where the dance music was already playing loudly. Their backs were straight and their strut pronounced. They were ready to show the girls they were real cowboys and real cowboys could two-step.

***

Hill and Harper had decorated the dining cabin, making it into a ranch house dance. Country music played on the CD machine. Hay bales were stacked up in the corner, and oil lamps sat in the windows.

The punch bowl was ready, and cookies in the shape of horseshoes, Stetson hats, and cowboy boots filled platters.

“Oh, my,” Gemma exclaimed when she led her girls into the dance. “You guys did a great job. How on earth did you transform it to this since suppertime?”

Hill grinned. “Thank you, ma’am. We had to work fast, but Harper had it all designed on paper and we just did what he said.”

Carly gasped. “It’s like a cowboy movie.”

Deanna whispered. “It’s beautiful.”

Damian boldly crossed the room and held out his hand to Jessie. “May I have this dance, ma’am?”

She looked at Gemma and for a fleeting moment Gemma thought she might bolt and run like a coyote on a hot summer night. But when Gemma smiled, Jessie took his hand and nodded. He led her to the middle of the dance floor and with at least a foot of space between their bodies, they two-stepped to a George Strait tune.

“Your girls are lookin’ good,” Trace said.

She’d never get used to the oozy feeling his warm breath on her neck caused. She wanted to kiss him right there under the mistletoe and then sneak off to the nearest hayloft or blanket under the stars to do more than kiss. But there was still the cold war to deal with before there would be any more kisses.

“Yes, they are, and so are your boys. Look at them dancin’ with the girls. How’d you get them to do that? Most boys are too shy to dance,” she said.

“Thank you, ma’am. It took as much work for me to put enough confidence in them to dance as it did for you to make all those girls look like princesses tonight.”

“And I can see what you and those boys have been doing in the evenings the past two nights. How many of them had even heard of two-stepping?”

He put a hand over his heart. “Guilty as charged. I couldn’t teach them what I didn’t know, so two-steppin’ and a little swing is going to be it for the night. Damian could do some fancy footwork to rap, but it wouldn’t work with country music songs. He caught on faster than any of them.”

She looped her arm through his. “Are you going to ask me to dance or do I have to wait for Tyrelle? Or are we still fighting?”

“He’s got his eye on Fiona, but Miz Gemma, may I have this dance? And we still have a talk to do, but I don’t think we’re fighting.”

Hill punched a couple of buttons and Travis Tritt’s song blared from the machinery.

“Swing it is,” Trace said.

On one twirl Gemma noticed Hill and a brunette doing some fancy footwork and Harper and a short blonde wearing cowboy boots like hers, only in pink, weren’t doing such a shabby job either.

“Who are those ladies?” she asked.

“Current girlfriends. Lester has gone to pick up his woman. There he is coming in the door right now. She owns a Western wear shop in town,” he answered just before he swung her out again in a series of twirls.

When the song ended Gemma was panting.

“Is it me, the dancing, or are you out of shape?” Trace asked.

“All of the above,” she gasped.

Trace smiled. “Now that’s a good answer, darlin’. Want to sit out the next one? Looks like the kids are doing fine out on the floor so find a chair and I’ll bring you a cup of punch.”

She nodded and melted into the nearest chair. Jessie and Damian were dancing again, this time a little closer. Tyrelle was teaching Fiona a two-step with an extra kick thrown in the mix. The rest of the kids were dancing all in a pile like kids did these days, but when the song ended and a slow one began, they chose up partners and the two-stepping began all over again.

Trace put a cup of punch in her hands and sat down beside her. “Gemma, I didn’t mean to let this go on this long, but I was busy in the evenings teaching the boys to dance so I didn’t get over to your cabin. Want to take a walk right now? I’d say there are plenty of chaperones at this dance.”

Gemma shook her head. “No. It can wait. I don’t want to miss a single minute of all this fun. I worked five hours on those girls this afternoon.”

Trace leaned over and kissed her on the earlobe. “I’d let you work five hours on me.”

It took all her willpower to sit still, but she managed. “Be careful about making me all hot, darlin’. Remember what they say about paybacks.”

Trace chuckled and sat up straight. “At least I’ve graduated from cowboy to darlin’. That’s enough for one night anyway, Miz O’Donnell. We can talk after the rodeo tomorrow night when I show you who is boss one more time.”

“How the mighty are fallen,” she quipped.

“Hemingway?” he asked.

Lester walked up beside them and said, “David in the Bible when Jonathan and Saul were slain. I want you two to meet Georgia. She’s from Colorado Springs and owns a Western wear store over there.”